


Stargazer

by Lady_sb



Series: Three Views on Marriage [3]
Category: Nightmare (Band)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Drama, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22988908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_sb/pseuds/Lady_sb
Summary: Sakito and Ni~ya have been almost everything to each other. Best friends. Bandmates. Everything except lovers, which both feel was by choice.But as old relationships come to the surface, is that really what the two of them want?
Relationships: Ni~ya/Sakito (Nightmare)
Series: Three Views on Marriage [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529501
Comments: 7
Kudos: 6





	1. ~Part I~

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how big this fandom is but I've always loved this couple, and this remains one of my OG couples. Whoever is reading this, I hope you enjoy it :) 
> 
> Just as importantly, this is forms part of my "Three Views on Marriage" series, where I explore how three couples, across three fandoms, deal with the ideas of love, relationships and marriage. From those who want it to be the be all and end all, to those who tried it and realised it wasn't for them, to those who feel that maybe it is not necessary a choice. You don't need to have read all three to enjoy the individual stories, but reading all three will give a more complete picture. 
> 
> Enjoy and comments/kudos are love.

***

_Tonight, let’s look at the stars_  
_bury the sky with clouds_  
_The things I hate can’t be erased easily._

_Twilight after 6pm,_  
_even if I can’t see the stars_  
_You are right beside me, definitely._

*** 

Ni~ya was a man of many talents. 

It wasn’t him being arrogant, it was just a fact.

Some of his gifts though, were more obvious than others. He was a pretty solid bass player, and his dry sense of humour was helpful when it came to diffusing tense situations. 

But his best talent was less obvious. In a nutshell, he actually had a pretty good knack for knowing where things belonged. Whether it was where his bassline should come in on a song, or even where the furniture in his house should be placed, Ni~ya’s keen perception always ensured that everything was exactly where it should be. 

His sixth sense wasn’t only for things that were tangible. He just knew when people could get along, whether they actually belonged in the orbit of each other’s life. He was so good at it that he once had a running bet with Yomi as to which of Ruka’s flings would last longer than a week. 

The vocalist had stopped the game once Ni~ya had won eight times in a row and he was out at least four bottles of 18-year Yamazaki single malts.

That was why Ni~ya knew, with almost 100% certainty, that his place in the world was right behind Sakito, both literally and figuratively. 

Of course, given his position on the bass, it meant he was naturally positioned behind the guitarist anyway, but that wasn’t the point. 

The point was that for as long as Nightmare had been performing, Ni~ya had always been staring at Sakito’s back. He had been doing it for so long that he was now a master at reading Sakito’s moods, just by decoding the semaphore of his shoulders. 

When Sakito was really into his playing, his shoulders were flatline, the muscles barely shifting, giving no indication that his fingers were flying effortlessly over his strings. 

Because his playing, as most things were for Sakito, was nothing less than an act of complete control.

Ni~ya knew when Sakito had fucked up. In those instances his shoulders would drop and the back of his neck would flush red, telling the bassist that he was inevitably biting his lower lip or cursing under his breath. 

The bassist could even tell when his bandmate was angry, only this time it was his hands that gave him away, both barely clenched into fists. 

It was during these times that Ni~ya stood behind Sakito offering moral support. He was almost always on his bandleader’s side when the five of them started squabbling 

Whether it was Yomi indulging in one of his more manic moods, or Hitsugi hitting the bottle at a rate that was worrying, or Ruka being an even grumpier bastard than usual, Ni~ya had Sakito’s back through it all. 

But aside from Ni~ya knowing he belonged there, it was no secret how close the two of them were. After all it had been Sakito that had brought him into Nightmare, and they were literally the closest in age. His birthday was exactly six days before Sakito’s and they almost always ended up celebrating together. 

And Ni~ya’s protective streak was not him trying to win favour with Sakito mind you. The bassist was a very uncomplicated person and the truth was that Sakito was almost always right in most matters. 

That was the only reason why he took his side. 

Really. 

“Really? Are you sure it’s not because you are madly in love with him?” Hitsugi slurred. 

Ni~ya glared at the younger guitarist. Hitsugi was back on the sauce again, finding it the perfect way to celebrate the end of a particularly disastrous relationship. 

It made the older man itch to tell Hitsugi that every relationship he embarked on was fated to be disastrous because Ni~ya knew he belonged with a certain gorgeous bisexual bassist who, sadly, was just as flighty as the butterflies he had tattooed above his butt. 

But he knew that at this particular moment he would be wasting his breath given how Hitsugi had stumbled into practice, glassy-eyed and completely miserable. When in this state the best thing to do was to bring him to the closest and cheapest izakaya to drown his sorrows. 

It meant cutting practice a little short, but when he had broached the topic with Sakito, the guitarist had been okay with it, waving all of them off which surprised Ni~ya a little. 

Okay, it surprised Ni~ya a lot truth be told. It actually made him worried too. It had not gone unnoticed that Sakito had been rather distant the past month or so, keeping to himself a bit more, and not joining the band during their drinking sessions. 

While it was true that as bandleader he did have more work to deal with than the rest of them, even normally reticent Ruka had voiced recently that Sakito had been withdrawn. 

“Come on Ni~ya, nothing wrong with admitting it,” Hitsugi pressed, clapping him on the back. 

“I am not in love with Sakito,” Ni~ya snapped. “Just have another beer and shut the fuck up.” 

Hitsugi wrinkled his nose at being scolded and petulantly peeled the corner of the label off the bottle. Ni~ya immediately felt bad and was about to apologise when the guitarist’s head jerked up. 

“Actually, why aren’t you?” Hitsugi asked, his curiosity greater than his fear of pissing Ni~ya off. “He’s gorgeous, talented and I bet you he would be amazing in bed.” 

Ni~ya exhaled sharply at how childish Hitsugi could be at times, but he knew that in a situation like this, humour was the best defense. 

“Yeah, so why would he settle for just me then?” Ni~ya replied sardonically, but he ruffled Hitsugi’s chocolate coloured hair to soften the harshness of his words. He smiled fondly as Hitsugi purred, sounding for all intents and purposes like a very large cat. 

Ni~ya wasn’t really angry with Hitsugi all things considered, it was just that he had brought up something the bassist had tried his hardest for the longest time to ignore. 

The fact was, it was difficult to not be attracted to Sakito on some level. As Hitsugi had pointed out, he was unbelievably beautiful, but that beauty had a very cold edge to it, which ironically enough just made him even more alluring. 

More jealous voices often murmured that his beauty was mostly due to styling, the sultry eye makeup and skimpy clothes criss-crossing his body like bondage gear. 

Those voices were silenced though when Sakito did his nude shoot for Shoxx. There was no hiding there clad as he was in his white guitar, gauzy sheets revealing miles and miles of creamy peach blushed skin. 

He had gotten a lot of shit from Nightmare for that shoot, which he took in good humour. 

But for Ni~ya, he thought a lot of people had been missing the point. 

For Ni~ya, Sakito was at his most beautiful when dressed in ragged jeans, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, controller in hand and brown eyes filled with laughter as he soundly beat the bassist at whatever game they were playing at the moment. 

In those moments, Sakito would turn and smile at Ni~ya and it made something inside the bassist twinge. 

So no… in no way was Ni~ya immune. 

But he had never once entertained the thought of going out with him. Yes, their friendship was the main excuse not to, but more than that Ni~ya was fearful of all the things that could possibly go wrong. It wasn’t just his and Sakito’s future at stake, it was Nightmare’s as well. 

So it was just easier to tamp down any vaguely romantic feelings he may have had, be with other people and try to see if they belonged in his life. 

Hitsugi sighed. 

“You may be right. I saw him once you know, with this handsome white guy,” Hitsugi said offhandedly as he concentrated on peering through the bottom of his beer bottle. 

Ni~ya stiffened. 

“You saw him with… who?” Ni~ya said, trying his hardest to keep his tone casual. 

“Dunno, it was at this bar down at Roppongi, you know the one,” Hitsugi gestured aimlessly. 

Ni~ya didn’t but he just nodded for Hitsugi to continue so as to not derail his train of thought, which the guitarist was very prone to do. He did not want this to end up being a 10 minute conversation about Hitsugi’s cat. 

“There was this guy Sakito was sitting with, real close. Dark hair, blue eyes, and Sakito was just sort of… touchy you know?” 

No Ni~ya did not know, and he felt a cold knot in his stomach. 

“I thought it was a one-time thing until I saw him a few days later. We were all at Tower Records, and you were dating that girl, the super bubbly one with peach coloured hair.” 

“Rina,” Ni~ya supplied evenly, although the knot in his gut tightened. Out of habit he ran his fingers through his blue hair in an effort to knock his emotions back into place. 

“Yeah, well this guy was waiting for Sakito and I saw them walk off together.” 

Hitsugi cocked his head to the side. 

“Actually, I am surprised you didn’t notice, usually you are the one who always knows what Sakito was up to.” 

Yes, he was. He was the closest to Sakito, stood behind him all the way, knew all the nooks and crannies of his life. 

All it seemed, except one. 

Ni~ya felt a flame of anger curl inside him, which was quickly extinguished by a wave of guilt at how irrational he was being. Sakito was not some virgin saint, and he had been very open about dating both boys and girls. 

But… 

Ni~ya felt his earlier anger flare up inside him again and clenched his jaw to stem it. 

But Ni~ya had known about them he rationalised, Sakito had equally ranted and raved about everyone he had ever dated, even casually, to the bassist, and vice versa. 

So what made this one different? 

Hitsugi noticed that Ni~ya had gone quiet and it got into his head that the bassist must be missing that girl. 

“Don’t worry about it Ni, I mean Rina was…” 

Ni~ya raised his eyebrow when Hitsugi stopped mid-sentence, puffed out his cheeks and cupped his hands a good four inches from his chest. The older man rolled his eyes at his friend’s juvenile behaviour. 

“Yeah Hitsu, I missed her so much that I didn’t know what to do until the next one came along like 20 minutes later,” Ni~ya snorted. 

But the minute the words left his mouth, the bassist felt a hot burn of shame in his gut. Rina had been a lovely person and Ni~ya had genuinely liked her. In fact, she had almost fit in perfectly in his life. 

Almost, not quite. 

However, it also wasn’t a lie that the minute he was single, there were more than a dozen, equally pretty girls, lining up for his attention. 

That was simply part and parcel of being a rockstar.

Thankfully it took Hitsugi letting out a plaintive whine to distract Ni~ya from delving deeper into his thoughts. 

“Why can’t I get girls as easily as you Ni?” Hitsugi said mournfully. “I mean like both you and… and Ruka… and like Aki…” 

There it was, that name Hitsugi brought up in casual conversation more often than he should. Ni~ya knew that it was time to order another round and try to get the guitarist closer to his true feelings, only to deny it once he sobered up. 

For them, it was the closest thing they had to some kind of fucked up version of therapy. 

Ni~ya should know, he was a master at it. 

*** 

Sakito was, by nature, a fixer. 

Always had been since the band started. 

He was so good at it that it was practically a talent. 

While he may have looked the part of a fay waif, Sakito at his core was pure ice and steel. He had made techs cower in fear before when they had stuffed up his tuning. The guitarist had very little tolerance for idiots who acted like they knew everything. 

Hence why it was a surprise to many that when it came to his bandmates, his patience seemed bottomless. But that, Sakito often argued, was different. Sakito loved all of them and would never stop standing up for them, whether with the label, or anyone else in the industry. 

Yes even Ruka, whose drumming was basic at best, but whose compositions always made Sakito bristle with envy. 

Yes even Hitsugi, who seemed more interested in having fun than working, but whose heart was so earnest and sweet. 

Yes even Yomi, who was eccentric and twisted, but did everything he could to make up for what he saw as shortcomings in his voice. 

And Ni~ya… always for Ni~ya, who for all his laissez faire attitude, never stopped being there for him, and never stopped anchoring him. Who he loved more than anyone in the world. 

So it was frustrating as fuck to him that he couldn’t fix this. 

“So… a hiatus is the only way?” Sakito said quietly, his voice calm but he could feel the tremble in his fingertips. 

The three men before him, Nightmare’s manager, the company head and the creative director, all nodded their heads in sync. 

“We got the report from Yomi’s doctor. It’s bad Sakito, and he needs a break, a long one,” said the manager, whose name was Honda. 

“How long are we talking?” Sakito asked.

“A year at the minimum, longer would be better,” Honda said matter-of-factly.

Sakito bit his lip as he looked down. To anyone, it would come across as a sign of weakness, but Honda knew better. The guitarist had very few weaknesses, and even fewer tells when he was truly knocked off kilter. 

“So the reason you are telling me instead of all of us, is that you want me to do your dirty work for you?” Sakito said, with just the barest trace of contempt in his tone. 

Shigeru, the company head, bit back a sigh. Nightmare was nowhere the most troublesome band on the VK scene, but times like this really tested his patience. Thankfully Honda knew how to diffuse the situation. 

“You know that is not true Sakito,” Honda said gently. “Yomi already has an inkling, but you know the boys would take the news better coming from you.”

Honda’s attempt at mollifying him made Sakito flinch, but he couldn’t deny that he was right. Something inside him hurt though when he pictured telling the rest of the band, and it particularly ached when he imagined what Ni~ya’s face would be. 

“So what is your plan for us then?” Sakito asked, after taking a deep breath and reaching for his phone to take notes. 

“The tour will continue as usual. You all of course can come back if and when Yomi is better. But in the meantime you all are free to do your individual projects. Ruka and Hitsugi are sorted, I don’t know about Ni~ya, but you’ve always wanted to do your own thing too right?” 

Sakito’s grip on his phone tightened. Of course he did, but not like this. 

“When?” 

“Soon,” Shigeru spoke, his tone a lot softer than it had been earlier, but no less final. 

“Tomorrow,” Sakito said flatly. “And you all are going to call them. I will talk to them, but I will be damned if I am going to be the one leading them into this.” 

With that, Sakito stood up and strode purposefully out the door. 

***

In all of his years at the label, Ni~ya had never been in a meeting room that was this quiet. 

He looked up towards the front of the room where Sakito was standing, his eyes downcast and his hand clenched by his side. His shoulders this time were almost ramrod stiff, the angular jut of his clavicle even more pronounced, telling Ni~ya that he was holding himself back in a way that must have been physically painful. 

Not for the first time, Ni~ya wanted to walk over to give Sakito a hug. To tell him that it was okay to not be the ice princess for once.

Especially now. 

“So that is the way it is,” Sakito finished quietly, running his hand through his shoulder-length auburn hair. “I am so sorry guys…” 

“Hey, you have nothing to be sorry for Saki, it’s my fault after all,” Yomi interjected, standing up to join Sakito by his side. Turning to the rest of the band, the diminutive frontman drew himself up to his full height before bowing. 

“I am sorry I let you down guys,” Yomi said, his voice muffled but he was so rarely sad, so rarely anything except joyous and exuberant, that it hit the rest of Nightmare harder than if he had broken into full blown sobs. 

“Not your fault Yomi, that is simply how it goes. We know you couldn’t have done more than you could.” 

It was no surprise to anyone that Ruka was the first one to speak up. As Nightmare’s eldest member, he was often the voice of reason when even Sakito’s level headedness failed. It was why he spoke so little, and only when prompted. 

It was also the reason why when he spoke, the other four listened. 

“I don’t think it’s entirely a bad thing guys,” Ruka added, his voice uncharacteristically soft, sounding very much like a big brother. “It’s no secret that we’ve been feeling burnt out, this has been our life since we were teens, and stopping here to breathe a little, to live a little, will just make us better.” 

Ruka was right, as he inevitably was in situations like this. But the pain in Sakito’s chest didn’t seem to go away, his gaze drawn as it was constantly to where Ni~ya was leaning against the wall, his hoodie pulled low so the guitarist couldn’t see his face. 

But he saw the bassist’s clenched hands and his own fingers itched to try and make it better. Just how he wasn’t sure. 

“You are right Ru. It would be nice to have some time for personal growth and Gremlins.” 

It was Hitsugi that spoke up this time, which was a bit more surprising. Of the five of them, Hitsugi was always the one most prone to outbursts of emotion, given how blatantly he wore his heart on his sleeve. 

For some reason though, his easy acceptance of the situation didn’t sit right with Sakito. Just as he was about to say something cutting, a determined look in the younger guitarist’s eyes stopped him. 

“I want to be a better match to you Sakito. I know I still have miles to go and I will use this time to make myself better,” Hitsugi explained with a purposeful nod. 

And just like that, Sakito’s anger melted. How could he be mad when Hitsugi was so earnest and emphatic to see the positive side of it all. It was the bright flipside to his emotional nature. 

“So the company is essentially shelving us for now?” Ruka’s tone was brisk, his attitude all business as he scrolled through the calendar on his phone. 

“Well, they said we can keep doing the solo stuff while Yomi heals, they won’t yank support for that. But all of that is once we finish the tour and the final.” 

Sakito took a deep breath to give himself a moment before laying out the next part, which would be the most difficult. Yes, there was a lot to get through, their contracts, salaries, royalties, a hiatus release schedule. 

But that wasn’t what he was dreading. 

“First things first, we need to compose what to tell the fans. Don’t think we can hide it much longer. Will you all just send it over to Kiyoko tomorrow, and she will update the social media sites.” 

The rest of the band nodded as they slowly started to pack up. But in between them sliding their phones into their pockets and straightening out their coats, there seemed to be this unspoken effort between them to reassure each other. 

Whether it was Hitsugi lightly touching Sakito on the shoulder, or Ruka ruffling Yomi’s hair, each gesture seemed to say “ _Don’t worry_ ” “ _It will be okay_ ” “ _We will get through this_ ”. 

And most loudly “ _We are in this together_ ”. 

“Gonna go for a drink, join?” Yomi asked with a careless wave. 

“Later, gotta call Kai first. Gazette also has some downtime scheduled and I’ve been promising to take him on a long holiday,” Ruka said, his normally blase expression softening only just slightly as he mentioned his long-term boyfriend. 

And it only happened when he mentioned Kai by name Sakito realised, his heart tightening a bit with envy. 

As the other members filtered out one by one, it dawned on Sakito that through it all Ni~ya hadn’t said a word. Worry weighed like a rock on his chest as he watched the bassist slowly put his things in his bag, wisps of blue hair sticking out from his hoodie obscuring his face. 

“Ni~ya, you okay? You’ve been pretty quiet.” 

For the first time the whole afternoon Ni~ya turned to the guitarist so that Sakito could finally read his emotions. Only to be taken aback at how calm the other man looked. 

“Yeah Sakito, it’s just… a lot to take in you know,” Ni~ya answered, pushing his hoodie back revealing his rumpled cobalt hair, which Sakito wanted so desperately to smooth back. 

“So we will be taking a break huh?” 

In order to stop himself from doing anything stupid, Sakito kept his hands firmly on the conference table, resisting the urge to tap his nails against the formica surface. Ni~ya knew him so intimately that the bassist would have immediately picked it up as a sign that the guitarist was more troubled than he was letting on. 

“It is a good thing,” Sakito said, more to himself than anyone else. 

“Of course it is Sakito, I mean Yomi’s voice has been on shaky legs for months now, and Ruka was right about us feeling more than a little dry inspiration-wise. I’ve actually been dreading going back to the studio,” Ni~ya said with a wry chuckle, sounding more like himself. 

But Sakito didn’t find it funny at all, guilt and anger at his own shortcomings tying dead knots in his gut. 

“Ni~ya, why didn’t you tell me that?” Sakito said, trying to not let his frustration show. But it wasn’t frustration at Ni~ya, rather at himself for not noticing that the bassist had been hanging back. Although the main songwriting burden ultimately fell on either him or Ruka, he had been ecstatic when Ni~ya said he wanted to try his hand at it, because he had faith in the bassist’s talent. 

How could he not have noticed that Ni~ya had been floundering? 

Ni~ya had to hold back a sigh at Sakito’s sudden change in mood, his temperamental nature more than a little trying at time. This was the other part of his ice princess persona he wished Sakito would keep a handle on, only this time Ni~ya’s reasons for wanting so were not as charitable. 

But deep down Ni~ya knew that wasn’t the real reason why he had kept his exasperation to himself. 

_Because I would rather get hurt myself than hurt you_.

“I am okay Saki-chan, really” Ni~ya said as he stood up, using the childish nickname to ease the deep furrow in his bandmate’s brows. He smiled inwardly when he saw Sakito’s features smooth out as the impulse to kiss him on the forehead heated his skin. 

“I am okay.” 

***

Ni~ya was decidedly not okay, not in the slightest. 

In fact, if he had allowed himself to give it more thought, he might have recognised the beginnings of a panic attack. 

He had spent the better part of the morning attempting to compose his message to the fans, saving draft after draft only to delete it all in a moment of pique. As he paced the length of his living room, Ni~ya spun his iPhone in his hand as he tried to get his thoughts into some semblance of order. 

The thing was, he actually had about 15 minutes to come up with something before the car would come to pick him up. It was a live day, which meant that he would have to hit the ground running the minute he got to the venue. 

It was at that point Ni~ya gave up, caved in, and sent Sakito a message over LINE. 

“ _I don’t know what to say!!!!_ ” 

“ _Ni~ya….are you panicking?_ ” 

“ _...No_ ” 

“ _Baba Yuji =_=;;;..._ ” 

“ _Okay, okay maybe a little, but I really don’t know what to say._ ” 

“ _First you have to realise that nothing you say will ever be the right thing. There is nothing we can say that will make it completely okay. Be honest, be you…._ ”

Ni~ya breath stilled as he watched the three dots bounce. 

“ _Above all, be hopeful_ ”

Ni~ya slumped on his couch as he read the guitarist’s latest message and sighed. Sakito was right. Dressing up the inevitable in pretty words was pointless given that he had always been the straight talker, and the fans knew this about him. 

If he tried to be bubbly like Hitsu or Mad Hatter philosophical like Yomi, it would just worry them even more. 

So the bassist let the wheels in his head spin, picking up his bag when he heard the car downstairs. But Ni~ya barely remembered the journey, intent as he was on letting his thoughts make sense, clicking and twisting until the gears of his mind finally aligned. 

And he finally knew what to say. 

“ _It’s a distressing and heavy feeling this need to rest, however I remain positive. If in order to continue NIGHTMARE activities in the future, I feel glad to rest. To fans, to partners, please continue to give us strength. No one cheers on a bad band. Thank you in advance._ ” 

“This is perfect Ni~ya,” Kiyoko said, scanning the message before loading it up to her social media manager app. “I am sure the fans will appreciate it.” 

“When are we going to release it?” Ni~ya asked as he started to strap on his boots. Unlike the other members, he tried his best to keep his costume simple so that he could play without being hampered by fabric. 

Unlike some people, Ni~ya thought to himself, glancing over at Sakito who seemed to be getting into a makeshift harness while surrounded by two wardrobe people. The thought wasn’t malicious though, rather the slant of Ni~ya’s feelings was actually closer to affectionate. 

Although many people probably thought otherwise, Sakito wasn’t actually contractually obliged to have his costume consist of basically a thong and a crop top. The guitarist actually liked his revealing clothes, employing it as a big up yours to snotty casual male fans, who looked down on VK, but probably thought about him as they jerked off. 

“After the live tonight,” Kiyoko answered, staring intently down at her phone. “The only one who hasn’t given me their statement is Sakito.” 

Ni~ya’s head jerked up in surprise. After the pep-talk Sakito had given him earlier, he had assumed that the guitarist would have been the first to hand his in. 

But then Sakito was always the busiest of them before the live, making sure everything was in place. Ni~ya felt a swell of emotion at his chest as he looked at his friend, the origin of which he wasn’t really sure. 

Maybe because after this, things wouldn’t be the same. That after tonight, their time together as Nightmare would be on a finite clock. 

But he would not be able to let any of that show. Ni~ya was a professional after all, and his Japanese sensibilities would never let him give anything except his very best. 

Yet, a part of him wanted to go through all this with Sakito. Just like earlier, it was a habit of his that when he felt unmoored, he automatically looked for the guitarist. It was amazing what a touch to his shoulder, a word in his ear, frivolous or not, could do for his nerves. 

However, when he looked up, Sakito was nowhere to be seen, and immediately Ni~ya felt his earlier anxiety come back to him in spikes. He took a deep breath to calm himself as he ran chords in his head, mentally mapping the setlist so as to stop the churning in his stomach. 

Yet, none of his usual tactics that he used to manage his emotions seemed to work. It got to the point where even the staff could practically see Ni~ya nervousness come off him in yellow snaps of static electricity. 

“You okay man?” 

Ni~ya jumped when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. Turning sharply, he was met by Ruka’s normally blank face, but his eyes were surprisingly filled with palpable concern. The drummer never stopped being a mystery, even to his bandmates. 

The only person who seemed to be able to break through was Kai, which always made Ni~ya want to ask the GazettE drummer what was his secret. 

“Yeah, just a bit antsy, I mean it’s not just another live,” Ni~ya confessed, rubbing his hands over his bass, taking some comfort in the silicone slip of his strings. Ruka sat back in his chair with a nod, quiet as he took a contemplative drag of his cigarette. 

“Maybe, but I always play like it’s my last anyway,” Ruka said with a half-grin. “You never know when all of this goes away.” 

He punctuated his words with a careless wave around the dressing room. 

“That’s why we all should never leave things unsaid Ni,” Ruka finished simply, but the way he said those words, the deliberate pause and emphasis in his speech, made Ni~ya think that he was trying to say something else. 

But Ni~ya found it hard to dwell over it because that was the moment that Sakito walked back into his room, and he felt his heart slow down a beat. 

“Sorry Ruka, did you say something?” Ni~ya asked when Sakito was whisked away by his makeup artist to do his hair. But instead of answering, all he got was a look from Ruka, the earlier concern in his brown eyes transformed into something infinitely sharper, and definitely less kind. 

“Nothing,” Ruka said cryptically with a shake of his head, which rubbed the bassist a bit the wrong way. But the drummer walked away before Ni~ya could say anything further. 

Ni~ya gave himself a sharp shake. He would worry about Ruka later, for now he wanted to concentrate on getting to Sakito. 

But try as he might, he just kept _missing_ him. He would see him out of the corner of his eye, glimpses of his auburn hair, a flash of pale skin, his laugh that never failed to warm Ni~ya from the inside. 

It was as if there was an invisible wall between them keeping them apart. They could see each other, but when the bassist moved in closer to touch, his fingers would slam against something solid.

That didn’t change even when they went on stage. It was normal for all of them to engage in some level of fanservice, but Sakito was maddeningly out of reach the entire time. Ni~ya was just glad that the fans were so wrapped up in their entire performance that they didn’t notice he was just a touch off. 

Thankfully the rest of Nightmare was on their game tonight. Yomi pushed himself harder than he should, while Sakito and Hitsugi were in complete lockstep. Ruka radiated aggressive intensity, his drums creaking under the strain.

By the time they had finished second encore, both the band and the fans were completely exhausted, yet their energy levels seemed higher than ever. 

“Good job everyone!” Yomi said, throwing his arms around Hitsugi in a bear-hug. Or, given Yomi’s diminutive stature, more like a hamster-hug, Ni~ya thought fondly. 

His own euphoria was sky-high, his blue hair plastered against his forehead as sweat trickled down his back. The bassist knew he should go shower, but he was still so buzzed that he didn’t want anything to bring him down. 

Ni~ya suddenly looked up and managed to catch Sakito’s eye. The guitarist looked just as exhausted as he was, but he still returned Ni~ya’s gaze with a warm smile of his own. 

And just like that, the bassist felt his heart lift. 

Only to have it come crashing down when Kiyoko walked in with her iPad in her hand. 

“Good job guys,” she said softly, knowing that her presence in this case was far from welcome. She took a breath and looked at all of them, her finger hovering about the screen. 

“We ready?” 

It was so silent in the room that Ni~ya swore he could hear a pin drop. It seemed that none of the members wanted to give her the okay, nobody wanted to be the one to change things. 

Change. It was one of the hardest things to comprehend. To have everything you know and hold dear in your life turn on its head in a matter of hours. And just like that you would have to deal with it. 

It was not fair, Ni~ya thought. It was not fair that you had no time to grieve, to feel sorrow at what was lost. Because you were forced to move on. 

It fucking sucked. 

“Do it.” 

Of course it was Sakito who gave the order, his voice even and cold. But it didn’t mean that Ni~ya had to watch it. 

“Going out for a smoke,” he muttered to nobody in particular as he grabbed his pack and a lighter. The truth was it was perfectly fine to smoke in the dressing room but Ni~ya needed some air. 

Hiding behind the equipment truck, Ni~ya lit up, took a drag and let it out in a slow, white stream, as if trying to blow out his nerves. It worked a little, enough for the bassist to throw his head back and look up at the night sky. 

Usually Tokyo’s light pollution made it impossible to see the stars, but this livehouse was just outside the city limits, which meant he could see them clearly now, twinkling diamond chips in the darkness. 

Ni~ya was not the philosophical type, but even he could not help but feel some greater connection. 

It brought him enough peace to be able to open his phone and check Nightmare’s twitter. He brought his cigarette to his lips as he read all the messages. Yomi’s message was unsurprisingly the longest, the most contrite. Ruka’s was the shortest, basically telling them all sardonically to get a grip and to not worry. 

Then came Sakito’s message, which Ni~ya read with interest. 

“ _Being able to continue on this road is the most important thing. Being able to stop for a little while is just as important I think. I believe to become faster and stronger, it is necessary to stop. This stop is crucial to us in being able to continue as five people on stage. Do not worry._ ” 

It was classic Sakito. Saying just enough, but not too much. Encouraging but comforting, with one eye on the future. It was the statement of a person who was completely in control of his emotions. 

And for some reason, it pissed Ni~ya right off. 

Sakito’s tweet sounded so calm, like it was inevitable and that this break was the best thing to ever happen to them. 

Of course, it meant that the guitarist could spread his own, deeply talented wings. 

Meanwhile Ni~ya was trying his hardest not to freak out about branching out into the unknown. A future that at one point he had seen so clearly, that was now at the bottom of a dark cliff. 

At one point he had been sure of an arm around his waist, holding him secure so he could at least peer over the edge. Or even more importantly, was willing in a heartbeat to take that leap with him. 

Ni~ya’s back stiffened causing the ash at the end of his cigarette to scatter onto the ground, speckling it white. 

His eyes cleared as the realisation hit him like a sledgehammer. He had been carrying his feelings with him for so long that he had ignored putting a name to it, because it had always been there. He had taken for granted that they would always be there. 

Tossing his cigarette on the ground, Ni~ya went back into the building, practically running down the hallway before barging into the half-empty dressing room, his anger barely contained. 

“Everybody… out,” he barked at the two techs and Honda, who happened to be crowding around Sakito. Everybody jumped as the door slammed, but Ni~ya barely felt the reverberations of wood on wood. 

The bassist was so rarely in this state that it didn’t take more than a millisecond glance between them before the staff all scurried out of the room, closing the door behind them. 

Even Sakito was momentarily taken aback by Ni~ya’s harsh tone. But he took one look at this bandmate’s face and his hackles immediately rose. Sakito had already been nursing a pretty bad headache at this point and he didn’t appreciate Ni~ya’s sudden urge to grandstand. 

“Ni~ya, what the fuck is your prob…” 

“Why are you not more upset?” Ni~ya spat the words out like they disgusted him. 

Sakito felt a shard of pain lodge in the pit of his stomach at Ni~ya speaking to him this way. 

“Excuse me?” Sakito said defensively as he got to his feet, his hands clenched into fists. 

“How can you be over this so quickly Sakito? How can you find it so easy to move on and just compartmentalise it like you do everything else?” Ni~ya said, the echo of his accusation even louder in the small space of the room. 

The guitarist felt that shard dig deeper and his skin turn cold. But Sakito wasn’t the type to back down, even from Ni~ya. 

“Fuck you,” Sakito spat back. “After all we’ve been through, how _dare_ you Yuji? Just because I don’t push my emotions in my face like you do? Because, God forbid, I try to keep things together because I know me crying about it changes nothing.” 

Ni~ya swallowed hard. 

“Then _share_ it with me Sakito,” Ni~ya said, the barest hint of pleading in his tone. “You don’t have to go this alone, you don’t always have to be so strong. I lean on you all the time, why don’t you let me do the same for you?” 

“Because I failed you Ni~ya! I failed all of you,” Sakito cried, and Ni~ya could clearly hear it this time. The desperation. The embarrassment. “Don’t you dare tell me I don’t care, that your upset is somehow more justified than mine.” 

“Of course I am upset Sakito, this has been our life for almost 20 years! I am upset that Zozzy feels that he has let us down. I am upset that Hitsugi and Ruka find it so easy to move on.” 

Ni~ya took a deep breath, his heart beating like it was going to explode, that security band like iron wound tight under his ribs as he ran towards the edge. 

And jumped. 

“But most of all, I am upset that I won’t get to stand behind you anymore.” 

Sakito froze and he swore his heart skipped at the bassist’s words. His head snapped up so he could take in the look on Ni~ya’s face. All the things he expected to find in Ni~ya’s dark expressive eyes, hurt, despair, frustration, they were all absent. 

Instead what Sakito found was sadness. Palpable sorrow at being in love with someone who didn’t love him back. 

Sakito was a fixer, always had been. 

And he knew he had to fix that. 

“I love you,” he blurted out. His heart ached when Ni~ya took a hard step back, but he knew he had to push on before he lost his nerve. “I have always loved you Ni~ya, but I was always too much of a coward to say it.” 

Sakito too had felt that invisible wall between them all evening, and he wanted to scratch through it, to find a nick somewhere so he could finally break through. And he knew the only surefire way to do that was to just throw everything he could at it. 

“I was scared too Ni,” Sakito said quietly. “Of losing the band, of losing my best friend, of losing the person who had always been there for me. But you kept… slipping away, you kept finding other people, and I was always waiting, for what I don’t even know now.” 

For the longest time, Ni~ya had never allowed himself to wonder what was waiting at the bottom of that cliff. But as his heart swelled, he found that instead of floundering through the air, what really was waiting at the end was a soft place to fall. 

“Sakito,” Ni~ya said softly, so softly that the guitarist couldn’t hear the wonder his voice held. He stepped closer, through the break in the barrier. 

God, they both had been such fucking idiots. 

Boldy, Ni~ya took the guitarist’s face into his hands so he could use his thumb to trace Sakito’s gamine features for the longest time. 

Sakito wondered what it was that Ni~ya saw when he looked at him in all his damaged glory. Did he see the faint laugh lines? The dark circles hidden under the smudged kohl of his eyeliner? Lips that were dry and flakey from Sakito constantly chewing on them nervously. 

What he didn’t know was that Ni~ya saw all of this, and the uncertainty in his eyes, and it just floored him that he was allowed to touch him this way. 

How could he have ever thought that Sakito was an ice princess? Because he felt so warm underneath Ni~ya’s palms, his skin humming with every breath he took, his brown eyes deep and fathomless. 

Instead of speaking, Ni~ya just lovingly kissed the beauty mark at the bridge of Sakito’s nose, before tilting the other man’s chin up so he could kiss him on the lips. Sakito started at the sudden intimate contact, but his eyes closed as Ni~ya sweetened the kiss, tasting like his favourite lemon drops that he always kept in his bag. 

It struck the bassist like a thunderbolt, this felt right. 

When they pulled apart, Sakito’s cheeks were flushed pink on the highest part of his cheekbones, and Ni~ya felt a sizzle of desire travel up his spine. 

“I waited too long didn’t I?” Ni~ya said in a burst of self-exasperation. “I should have done this like… six months after I met you.” 

Sakito laughed, all his worries melting like snow in the rain. Ni~ya’s self-deprecation comforting in its familiarity. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Sakito said fondly. Now it was his turn to touch Ni~ya’s face, brushing back his damp blue hair so he could cradle his jaw. It was a gesture that felt practiced and yet was so brand new, brushing his fingertips over his lips and chin. 

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Ni~ya answered affectionately, realising that there was no need to hide anything now. Sakito smiled back but Ni~ya frowned when he saw the guitarist’s smile darken at the corners. 

“There is a lot to think about though Ni~ya,” Sakito said quietly, his fastidious nature already thinking about ten steps ahead. Ni~ya knew he wouldn’t be able to change that, but he decided that he would never stop trying. 

“Yes, but there is always tomorrow Sakito,” he answered, leaning over for another kiss that left the guitarist breathless and clutching fistfuls of Ni~ya’s shirt. 

Sakito had the distinct feeling he was being snookered, but as always with Ni~ya, forgiveness was never far behind. 

They had almost 20 years behind them, what was one more day? 

Tomorrow was just fine by him. 


	2. ~Part II~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much thanks to Jakiganeverdies and whoever it was that left kudos. You guys are awesome and I hope you enjoy the rest of this story. I thought about posting the epilogue later, but you all deserve to read the full story :) 
> 
> And before anyone asks, yes I was craving pretzels.

***

 _I had a dream that no one else could have,_  
 _and threw away all the unnecessary things_  
 _I can’t surrender the feelings I carry in my heart_   
_My overflowing impulses can’t be repressed,_  
 _because my heart strongly yearns_

***

“So how's it dating Sakito?” 

Ni~ya tried not to visibly flinch at the way too casual way Ruka asked that question, all the while nonchalantly tapping away on his phone. Instead, he chose to deal with his nervousness by flicking open and close the top of his Zippo, the sharp metallic clack clack loud enough to be heard even over the din of the izakaya. 

“It’s going okay so far,” Ni~ya answered. But Ruka could hear the hesitation in his voice, which came across to him as loud as a foghorn. 

“Only okay?” Ruka said slowly, swirling the ice cubes in his glass of Hibiki. Ni~ya refused to be baited however, focusing on the smouldering end of his cigarette. 

It turned out that dating Sakito was not that much different from being his friend. Especially since they hadn’t slept together yet. 

Yes, they had been together for two months, and they hadn’t had sex yet. 

And for someone like Ni~ya who very much enjoyed the physical aspect of relationships, it was not only maddening, it was actually driving him up the wall in blue-balls frustration. 

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t done anything either. Sakito seemed to be more than willing and open to them touching, whether it was a casual touch to the shoulder, or a more sensual stroke of his fingers on Ni~ya’s collarbone, which made his skin hum. 

And the kissing. Ni~ya was more than okay with the kissing. In fact, it was so freeing to be able to kiss Sakito whenever he wanted, for hours it seemed. To pull the guitarist close by the hips and take his breath away, or to brush his lips over the delicate shell of his ear. 

But the minute it seemed Sakito wanted to take things further, by insistently pulling on the lapels of Ni~ya’s shirt or guiding his hands lower, the bassist froze. He would immediately find himself trying to turn the heat down, by making his kisses briefer, softer. Ni~ya would try to replace his lust with tenderness, brushing back Sakito’s hair, his palms warm and reassuring against the small of his back. 

And the guitarist would acquise by just melting into his embrace. 

The truth was though, that it still felt _so_ weird to the bassist. They had been friends for so long that it was hard to kind of picture going any further. 

It was this that he tried to communicate to Ruka, who in return just stared at him like he was a complete and utter dickhead. 

“I don’t see what’s so hard. You both just need to get naked and then things will progress from there,” Ruka said flatly, but the snark behind it was evident.

Ruka was prone to comments like this, which sparked almost murderous urges among his bandmates. It made Ni~ya wonder, why had none of them killed him yet? 

Oh yeah, his songwriting skills and the probability that Kai would have gone postal on them. Ni~ya grimaced at the thought. 

At first glance, Kai may have been all soft dimples and sweet smiles, but the bassist reasoned it must be a front given that you would need to have a beast-mode in order to deal with the multitude of huge egos that made up his band.

Instead, Ni~ya glared at the drummer, but he didn’t trust himself to answer back. 

He knew Ruka was right, but there was another part to this that Ni~ya just couldn’t bring himself to confess. 

If he were being honest with himself, Ni~ya was nervous. Nervous of fucking up, of falling short of whatever expectations that Sakito had of him. 

He was a seasoned lover, he had slept with so many girls during the course of his career that he kinda knew where he stood. I mean, they couldn’t _all_ have been faking it. 

But with Sakito he couldn’t really rely on the rockstar shine to blind them, and it made Ni~ya feel all thumbs. Not only was Sakito himself no blushing virgin, he was also more experienced with men, where Ni~ya was lacking. 

He had never felt this way about anyone except Sakito, and it terrified him. 

There was also another, deeper layer to Ni~ya’s insecurity that chafed at him deep in his gut. A niggling feeling that he and Sakito simply just did not fit. And for someone who prided himself in knowing where everything should go, it was frankly infuriating. 

“It is not just about the sex Ru. I don’t think I have had a relationship before where I had this much to lose before and I want to be sure,” Ni~ya finally answered, settling on something that was a close enough version of the truth. 

Which Ruka didn’t buy, given how his eyes suddenly narrowed. 

“Don’t you dare use us as an excuse for having no balls Yuji,” Ruka snapped, and Ni~ya felt as if he had been slapped. 

“Excuse me?” Ni~ya said angrily. 

“Every relationship is a gamble Ni, and the size of the bet is immaterial. You are trusting someone else to not hurt you, to be there when you don’t believe in anything. That doesn’t change whether you are in a band or whether you are just a normal salaryman,” Ruka said, his tone hard. 

The younger man’s fists clenched. It was amazing that he hadn’t gotten into more physical brawls with Ruka given his lack of filter, which often brought out the worst in people. The older man had built his reputation on it, which meant he got away with a lot more than the rest of him could. 

On the other hand, it also meant that he was just regularly an asshole. 

Ni~ya’s back tensed as he got ready to fire back. In this case, he felt Ruka was way off base. In fact, the bassist was pretty sure that his bandmate had no idea what he was talking about. 

But just as he was ready to tell him this, he caught something in Ruka’s eyes that stopped him. Something that made Ni~ya’s anger lose its sharp corners and made him draw a deep breath. 

Because for all of the things Ruka was, he was never cruel or mean, and Ni~ya could see that. The look in his eyes, it went much deeper than just simple concern. 

“If you keep this up, someday, someone will come along who won’t hold back what they feel for him. Are you okay to lose him that way?” Ruka added quietly, his voice much gentler this time. 

The bassist’s stomach clenched as a sliver of pain lanced through him. 

“I won’t lose him,” Ni~ya said quietly, determinedly. 

For a minute Ruka looked like he was going to argue, only to think better of it. Instead he just patted Ni~ya on the shoulder and poured him more Hibiki, which the bassist gratefully accepted. Coming from the drummer, this would be the closest he would get to an apology. 

“You wanna hear about how Reita accidentally shrunk Ruki’s ridiculously expensive YSL jacket, and then tried to pass it off as clothes for his dog?” Ruka suddenly offered with a wicked grin. 

Ni~ya’s head snapped to the side. 

“No way,” he said with a laugh at Ruka’s sudden tangent, knowing that it would be the last he would say on the matter. The thing was, Ni~ya didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about it. 

So instead he just listened. Listened, drank and smoked as he let Ruka’s voice wash over him. 

*** 

Sakito had a hamster problem. 

Specifically, he found himself having to deal with a hyperactive hamster who had shown up at his door, unannounced, holding a six-pack of Asahi and a bulk bag of pretzels from Costco.  
Who was now sprawled on his couch, crunching them at an alarming rate, scattering salt crystals all over his carpeting. 

The guitarist’s fingers itched for his Dyson. 

Apparently, his vocalist was on a diet again, and it seemed that these were the only snacks his doctor would allow him. Although Sakito was pretty sure that Yomi’s doctor hadn’t intended on him downing them like Tic Tacs. 

“So, how was date night?” Yomi asked, putting his feet up on Sakito’s coffee table, half a pretzel dangling from the corner of his mouth. 

Usually Sakito would snap at the younger man for being so uncouth. So when he didn’t, Yomi felt a ping of worry in his chest. 

“It was nice. I mean, we go out all the time to eat anyway. But he took me somewhere really nice, and _he_ paid,” Sakito said with a chuckle, which triggered a laugh in Yomi as well, given that both were aware that Ni~ya could be a bit tight-fisted. 

“Actually it was nice to see the way we talk to each other hasn’t really changed either. I mean, I was always afraid it would be...awkward? You know? But we are still us, and that is comforting,” Sakito finished with a smile that Yomi almost bought. 

If it hadn’t been for the way the guitarist was chewing on his thumbnail. 

Yomi’s eyes narrowed and he pointed a pretzel at Sakito. 

“He still isn’t putting out, is he?”

“No!” Sakito exploded as he got to his face, the frustration emanating from him was so palpable that Yomi could practically see it sear the carpet. 

“I asked him that night whether he wanted to stay over and he said he was tired. _He_ was _tired_ ,” Sakito practically spat out. 

“I mean this is Ni~ya we are talking about. Who used to fuck groupies between encores, who is never single for longer than a couple of weeks. But suddenly with me, he turns into the fucking Virgin Mary.” 

Yomi stopped chomping on a pretzel long enough to give the guitarist a pointed look at his outburst. 

“Surely you don’t want to be put in that category Sakito,” Yomi said quietly, suddenly turning into the adult in the room. Sakito frowned at Yomi’s astute observation. He swore Yomi was some kind of savant, delivering pockets of profound wisdom between dick jokes and tests of Ruka’s sexuality. 

“Of course not Zozzy, it’s just that…” Sakito trailed off as he continued to pace. But soon his strides became shorter as his anger left him, and he slumped in his chair. 

To his credit, Yomi didn’t press him to continue, having turned his attention back to his snacks, as if to give the guitarist some breathing space. Of course, he could have just as well been distracted by fishing out a particularly odd-shaped pretzel. You could never really tell with Yomi. 

Whatever it was, Sakito felt grateful for the gap. It gave him time to pluck up his courage and verbalise the thought that had been sitting in his chest for the past few weeks. 

“What if he can’t be that way with me Zozzy?” Sakito finally said, the confession heavy on his tongue. “What if he can never be that way with me because I am a guy.” 

It wasn’t until he said it outloud that Sakito realised how much it actually hurt to even consider it. He had been hiding his feelings behind the veil of friendship for so long that the lightness he had felt once it had been torn off had been life changing. 

In an instant, although everything looked the same, nothing was. And the thought of going back to that was simply too depressing to consider. 

How could you go back to the dark, once you’ve gotten used to wandering in the light? 

“Would you be fine if that never happens between the two of you?” Yomi eventually asked, breaking the silence. A part of Sakito rebelled at the thought of a sexless relationship, but he was also honest enough to know that his reaction was more knee-jerk than anything else. 

“I love just being with him Zozzy, getting to know him this way, in a way that is so different has been amazing.” 

Yomi watched silently as Sakito went still in his chair, but he noted the telltale biting of his bottom lip. But again he knew not to push him, that it would take him a moment to take down the wall surrounding him. And even then, only a couple bricks at a time. 

“It’s not the sex. What if one day he realises he can’t do this… that he can’t be with me. What if he realises that it was all a mistake.” 

Sakito took a deep breath.

“What if he realises that being with me is a mistake,” Sakito said quietly, laying out the bare bones of his insecurity. 

Yomi looked at his friend sadly. 

“Saki, Ni~ya loves _you_. He always has even if he hadn’t realised it before this. Hell, all of us realised it ages ago. You make each other laugh all the time, you are there for each other, you share the same dreams.”

Sakito started as Yomi suddenly stood beside him and put a warm hand on his shoulder.

“If that is not love, then the rest of us are truly fucked.” 

Yomi sounded so earnest as he said this, like it was a fact of the universe. He said it in a way that was just so him that Sakito had to smile, his lips twitching up even more when Yomi accompanied his words with a handful of pretzels that he shoved right underneath the guitarist’s nose. 

“Thanks,” Sakito murmured, picking a pretzel off the top. Yomi cocked his head at the older man’s acceptance. 

“He just needs a little time to get to where you are, you just need to have some faith in him. After all, didn’t you have faith in him when you guys were just friends?” 

And just like that Sakito’s chest expanded a little as he felt his anxiety loosening its grip. He shot the vocalist a grateful look, which Yomi responded with a madcap grin. 

“So enough of this kissy-feely crap. Turn on your Netflix, there is this series about a porn director I really want to watch,” Yomi bounced on his heels as he fell back onto Sakito’s couch. 

The guitarist shook his head as he tried to not get whiplash from the change in atmosphere. But that didn’t stop him from reaching for his remote, stopping only to swipe a handful of Yomi’s pretzels along the way. 

Sakito laughed as Yomi gave an indignant squawk in protest. 

*** 

Sakito tried his hardest not to dwell on his and Ni~ya’s lack of intimacy in the weeks that followed, choosing instead to take Yomi’s advice to heart and let things go at their own pace. 

He did have faith in Ni~ya, and he anchored all his emotions on that one hook to stabilise him. 

It was just as well that lives had picked up again, and Sakito found himself too busy to think about anything else. Now that the news was out, their whole schedule was in full swing and Sakito’s checklist, which was already a mile long, was adding inches day by day. 

Which was why he was more than a little short when a staff member nervously approached him when he was busy running chords in his head. 

“Yes?” he snapped. 

“Sorry Sakito-san, but there are a couple of foreigners here to watch the show and they told me to pass this to you,” the staff member said, practically tripping over his words as he handed the guitarist a small scrap of paper. 

Sakito was about to admonish him for the interruption, only to draw a sharp breath when he recognised what was being handed to him. It was one of his old business cards with his writing on it. 

In a million years Sakito never thought he would see that card again. 

Getting up, Sakito took two quick strides into the hallway, which in a live house of this size meant that it was practically the backstage. Drawing back the curtain, his eyes widened when he saw a couple sitting on the second floor. They couldn’t have looked more out of place than if they had tried. 

One of them Sakito didn’t recognise, but he was standout handsome. Tall and dashing with chestnut brown hair and the bluest pair of eyes Sakito had ever seen. 

The other…

“ _My name is Ianto._ ” 

Sakito swallowed hard as memories started to play in his head like a montage. Flashes of grey-blue eyes filled with soul and sorrow, lips pressed against the base of his throat murmuring endearments in a soft accent that sounded almost musical. 

“Who is that Saki?” Yomi quipped, popping up behind him like the Energizer bunny, making the guitarist jump. 

“Somebody I dated… for a while. A long time ago,” Sakito said, trying his hardest to sound unaffected by an ex of his suddenly showing up. But almost against his will, he felt a small spark of anticipation low in his belly. 

However, that went away the minute he turned and saw Ni~ya staring at him with an unreadable look on his face. His throat tightening, Sakito quickstepped back to the dressing room.

He saw though out of the corner of his eye, Ni~ya take his place by the curtain and look out. 

Sitting back at the table, Sakito reached for one of the stray pack of cigarettes dotting the table and pulled out a stick. He had actually pretty much given up smoking, it was only in times like this the habit craving kicked in. 

“Which one did you date?” Sakito wasn’t surprised when Ni~ya joined him at the table. There had been very few secrets before them even before they started dating, their true feelings being the biggest one. 

For Sakito, his three-week relationship with Ianto came a close second. 

“Not the tall one, the one with the dark hair next to him. His name is Ianto,” Sakito said, his outwardly calm expression belying the way his gut was twisting. 

“I’ve never heard you talk about him before,” Ni~ya said. Now it was his turn to be fronting, to pretend that he wasn’t bothered by the sudden reappearance of a man who before tonight, he only had a vague idea even existed.

But he wasn’t going to let Sakito know that. 

“It was a short, it was barely anything Ni~ya,” Sakito said, keeping his voice low as he took a drag, so that nobody else in the room could hear. 

“Really?” Ni~ya said, trying to go for smooth only to have it land closer to sarcastic. It was enough to light a spark of annoyance in Sakito’s chest. He loved Ni~ya for sure, but he was nobody’s property. The bassist had shoved enough of his girlfriends in his face that Sakito felt it was unfair that he was the subject of an apparent double standard. 

Nevermind that Ni~ya wasn’t aware he was being cruel, but frustration and doubt did strange things to a person’s state of mind. 

“Yes Ni~ya,” Sakito said shortly. Sitting up, Sakito pulled a piece of paper closer and started scribbling, the scratch of the pen suddenly sounding very loud in the room that had gone suspiciously quiet. 

“Pass this note to the two foreigners,” Sakito gave this order to the staff member who was still hovering around, looking petrified. 

“You’re going to meet them after the live?” Ni~ya asked, his jaw tight as he forced the words out. Sakito shot him a look that told him not to push the matter, but a part of him softened at the expression on Ni~ya’s face.

Some of it was jealous anger yes, but there was enough concern and trepidation mixed in to tamp down some of Sakito’s earlier flash of exasperation. 

“Ni~ya, I am just going to catch up with Ianto okay,” Sakito said, as gently as he could so that Ni~ya could see that he wasn’t placating him just for the sake of it. “Plus, I am pretty sure the other guy with him is his boyfriend, a person he told me was the love of his life.” 

Ni~ya relented a little, letting out a slow breath as he loosened the grip on his feelings. He could see that Sakito was sincere, but he couldn’t help but wonder that if the meeting was so innocent, why the guitarist wasn’t extending the invite to him. 

As if reading his mind, Sakito stood up and leaned in closer. “Plus, I have no idea how good Ianto’s Japanese has gotten, it was pretty appalling last time.” 

It was a weak joke that Ni~ya saw right through. But he also knew that this wasn’t a good time to pursue this, before a live, when everyone’s emotions were already hanging on tenterhooks. When everyone needed to be in the best headspace. 

And there was Sakito, beautiful as always, those dark eyes full of what he felt for him. The difference now was Ni~ya didn’t have to hide his feelings for the guitarist, how he never failed to turn his heart inside out. 

He just wished he knew where Sakito’s heart stood the majority of the time. 

After a quick look around to see that nobody was watching, Ni~ya caught Sakito in a full kiss on the lips that was short but intense. He grinned as he watched Sakito’s cheeks turn darker under the rouge. 

“I trust you,” Ni~ya said. “Come to my apartment after that okay?” 

It made sense, their apartments were close enough that Sakito could bike over. But Ni~ya’s words didn’t have the intended effect he thought he would. He thought Sakito would feel reassured, but instead the other man’s eyes dropped away as he nodded and his body language became evasive. 

And just like that, Ni~ya felt his anxiety come clawing back 

Three weeks sounded short but Ni~ya couldn’t help one thought from coming to the forefront. 

If it had only been three weeks, why was this stranger able to do something to Sakito that Ni~ya never could. 

He unnerved him. 

***

In his note to Ianto, Sakito had given him the address of one of his favourite izakaya’s, which luckily was fairly near the live venue in Roppongi. 

His nerves were jangled, he could see that in the slight tremble in his skin, the feeling heightened by the fading adrenaline from the live. 

But it was the good kind of nerves, the kind that put a lightness in his step as he smoothed down the front of the black knit turtleneck he was wearing, the exaggerated collar encasing half his face, serving double duty of keeping him warm and his identity obscured. 

Even so, it was nice to have some home advantage, and Sakito had always loved this izakaya. Although it was part of a chain, it didn’t look cheap by any means. All the fixtures were Japanese cypress, which gave the restaurant a herbaceous perfume as opposed to that of day-old fried chicken. 

It also had roomy private booths, and Sakito had requested for one in the back just in case some fans decided to have a drink there as well. 

But that was the last thought on his mind as the server showed him to the room, his anticipation hitting a peak as he stared at the rice paper door. 

And there he was, smiling like him like an old friend. Which Sakito supposed he was.

“Ianto…”

“Sakito.” 

Before he could say another word, Ianto immediately pulled him into a warm hug that knocked the breath out of him. It may have been years since he last saw him but Sakito would never forget the feel of his arms around him, strong and comforting. 

Just like last time, Ianto felt very much like a port in a storm. 

His warmth lingered even when they pulled apart so that Sakito could take his first good look at him, and took in his handsome quintessential English features and shorter cropped dark hair. 

But those slate blue eyes, they had remained, the only difference now being that they were much brighter. 

And Sakito didn’t have to think long and hard as to why. 

“Sakito, please meet Captain Jack Harkness,” Ianto stepped aside to reveal an almost blinding smile. 

Almost against his will, Sakito felt his pulse quicken. Ianto’s partner was even more handsome up close, but it went beyond just his looks. He radiated an almost intoxicating mix of devil-may-care confidence and warmth that Sakito recognised as rockstar charisma. 

And he hadn’t even said a word yet. 

“Ianto told me you were absolutely gorgeous but he did you no justice,” Jack said in near pitch-perfect conversational Japanese, his large hands warm as they completely encased Sakito’s more delicate fingers. 

“Likewise,” Sakito replied in surprise. He shot Ianto a questioning look, which he responded with a shrug of his shoulders as if to say that his lover’s fluency had come as a shock to him too. 

As he sat down opposite the two men, Sakito felt his nerves come back in full force. If it had just been Ianto he probably would have felt more at ease but with Jack there, worry flooded the guitarist as he wondered how much Ianto had told about their time together. 

His apprehension evaporated though when Jack started talking to him like he had known him his whole life, his charm coming across so easily that it was practically effortless. In fact, Ianto barely got a word in edgewise but he kept shooting soft looks at Sakito as if to reassure him. 

It also made the guitarist realise that maybe Ianto was as nervous as he was.

“Did you enjoy the live?” Sakito asked as he lit up a cigarette as the waitress cleared their plates. 

Leaning back against the cushioned seat, Sakito exhaled the smoke slowly in a thin satisfied stream. His belly was warm and pleasantly full from the seafood hotpot and softly buzzed from the never-ending stream of booze. They had started with bone-cold sake from Shizuoka, sweet on the lips but dry on the tongue, before moving on to pulpy fruit sours and tea-laced whisky. 

The alcohol did its job though, loosening knots frozen by time and easing the stream of conversation. In a mix of English and Japanese, Sakito asked about their holiday and they in turn asked about the band. 

It turned out Jack’s many years flying as a commercial pilot meant that he had picked up enough conversational Japanese to get by. Or in Jack’s own words, enough to get him in trouble, he explained with a wink. Which made Sakito laugh and Ianto roll his eyes. 

To his credit, Ianto’s Japanese had definitely gotten better and Sakito was glad to realise that his English was not as rusty. 

“It was amazing to watch, even though we don’t really know your songs, you were mesmerising,” Ianto said with such sincerity that it made Sakito’s cheeks flush. He had been doing it for most of his life that he forgot the power that a good performance had. 

“Thank you. I am glad you managed to finally watch Ianto,” Sakito said fondly, which Ianto responded with a smile that was hairsbreadth away from intimate. It was only a split second but Sakito could feel the tug of their previous connection. 

It had been like that the first time they had met, when Sakito had been drowning his sorrows in a famous gay bar in Roppongi, not that far from where they were now actually. The guitarist only seemed to go to that bar when his feelings got too close to the surface. 

But the moment was broken by Jack giving a small cough. Ianto stiffened in his seat, meeting Jack’s eyes briefly before turning away and murmuring that he was going to the bathroom. 

For a moment Sakito just stared at the glass he was cupping in his hands, not sure if he wanted to see the expression on Jack’s face, and the accusation that was likely there. 

“He told me that you helped him when he was at his darkest, thank you,” Jack said, making Sakito’s head snap up in surprise. But his kind words didn’t stop the twist in Sakito’s stomach, the other man sounded so grateful that it was almost too much for the guitarist to bear. 

“It wasn’t completely selfless, he helped me too,” Sakito said quietly. 

“I figured,” Jack went on, but there was a definite shift in his tone that was more comforting than combative. “Don’t worry, he didn’t tell me everything, but I take it that you and your bassist getting together wasn’t an easy thing?” 

The only answer that Sakito deigned to give was the muted tap of his nails against his glass. 

“You together now?” 

“Yes we are actually,” Sakito answered. He wasn’t prepared though for the rush of affection that flooded him at being to finally say so to someone else. It was as if it made their relationship more solid somehow. 

Jack smiled as if he knew what Sakito was feeling at that moment. 

“He did tell me that there was one thing you said that resonated with him really strongly.” 

Jack leaned forward and Sakito could smell the faint edges of his cologne, sweeter than the green waft of the sandpapered cypress. 

“ _Koi wo suru beki._ ”

“You deserve to be in love. You told him that, and I am glad,” Jack said. “Ianto told you right? About how we got together?” 

Sakito nodded, recalling Ianto’s story of meeting Jack while he was engaged. While Ianto himself was married. How they started an affair that ended when Ianto’s wife got sick, how they stayed apart after she was gone. 

And how, in a small hotel room half-a-world away from home, Ianto confessed to Sakito that Jack would always be the love of his life. 

“For everything, thank you,” Jack said, putting a hand on Sakito’s forearm. Despite them having just met, Sakito instantly relaxed into the gesture as he took it in the spirit in which it was intended. 

“What are you thanking him for? I thought you said you would be picking up the tab?” Ianto teased as he came back into the booth. Jack grinned and plucked the clipboard from underneath the table with an exaggerated flourish. 

“You said it Ianto,” Jack said, standing up and grabbing his coat. He waved off Sakito’s vehement protests that he should be one paying as he shrugged it on. 

“I need to go get something, why don’t the two of you spend a bit more time together,” Jack said, his voice softening before leaning down to give Ianto a kiss. 

“It was great to meet you Sakito,” Jack said, those strong hands once more enveloping his, this time accompanied by a slight squeeze. 

“And remember, what happens in Roppongi, stays in Roppongi,” Jack said with a smirk before walking out, his exit even more theatrical thanks to the long tails of his greatcoat artfully flapping as if being blown by a wind machine. 

Both Sakito and Ianto just watched him leave in semi-stunned silence before meeting each other’s eyes and burst out laughing. 

“I can see why you love him,” Sakito chuckled, lighting up another cigarette. 

“He is something else for sure,” Ianto replied with a grin, draining the last of his Oolong high. 

Sakito quirked an eyebrow when he noticed Ianto take a second glance at his pack before hurriedly looking off to the side. Giving the smallest of smiles, Sakito inched the Pianissimo across the table before deliberately putting his lighter next to it. 

He watched as Ianto appeared to war with himself before giving in and drawing one out of the pack. Sakito threw up his hands as if to tell Ianto he was not judging him. 

“How have you been Sakito?” Ianto asked, flicking the lighter until it caught the end of the cigarette. 

“Good, for the most part. Ni~ya and I are together now,” Sakito said, his earlier feeling of affection much sweeter now at the back of his throat. 

Ianto looked delighted. 

“I am glad. I am glad that you finally told Ni~ya how you felt,” Ianto said kindly.

“And I am glad that you managed to find what you were looking for,” Sakito replied softly. “I am glad you are back Ianto, Tokyo missed you.” 

“I missed Tokyo too,” Ianto said, looking over his shoulder to the booths behind. The sound of raucous, drunk salarymen hopped up on too much Asahi, strangely comforting. 

“Is being with Ni~ya everything you imagined it would be?” 

“It is, pretty much,” Sakito said, as he kept his tone as neutral as possible. But Ianto just managed to catch the hesitation in the last syllable, despite Sakito’s best efforts. 

Ianto didn’t jump in immediately though. He just watched as Sakito scrolled through the menu on the iPad, tapping on drinks just so he had something to do with his hands. 

“Is it not going the way you thought it would?” 

Sakito paused, knowing that he couldn’t keep ordering grapefruit sours until Ianto changed the topic. The guitarist didn’t really want him to either, it was more as if he wasn’t really sure what it was he wanted to say. 

“It’s not that Ianto. It is going pretty much how I thought it would be going. The part that I thought we might lose if we started dating, our friendship, that hasn’t really changed. But there is this whole other thing, this new thing that we both have no idea how to handle.” 

“But you aren’t just friends anymore Sakito. You are lovers,” Ianto said. “It will be awkward. It was that way with me and Jack when we got back together this time. We are different people now and because of that, we can’t be with each other the way we were before.” 

“So what do you do?” Sakito asked quietly.

“We figured it out, but it’s something we needed to do together. And trust me Sakito, I saw the way he looked at you on stage tonight when he thought nobody was looking. Believe me, that boy has it bad.” 

Sakito drew a breath as Ianto reached across the table and took his hands in his. 

“So let me give you the same advice I gave you last time. Tell him everything, don’t be afraid to ask him what it is you want to ask him. He is not going to leave you.” 

There it, the verbalisation of the fear that Sakito had always carried with him when it came to Ni~ya. The guitarist thought it would be gone when they got together, but it appeared that old habits die hard. 

“I will,” Sakito breathed out, and Ianto could the tenseness leave his fingers. “Thanks Ianto.” 

“But…” 

Sakito looked up at Ianto’s interjection in surprise, those blue eyes full of an emotion that he could not really place. 

“But before he gets you for the rest of his life, just be mine for a couple of hours,” Ianto said softly, brushing his thumbs over the top of Sakito’s knuckles. The touch was familiar, but it didn’t have the same effect on Sakito like it did previously.

It appeared he had it bad too.

“Of course Ianto,” Sakito said with a smile, and it took Ianto back to when he had first caught a glimpse of him at that bar. Beautiful, ethereal, like a sprite from the picturebooks he had growing up in Wales. 

“You can start by telling me how you and Jack got back together,” Sakito asked. Now it was his turn to satisfy his curiosity. 

Ianto leaned back with a half-smile on his lips. 

“It was at a wedding…” 

Sakito leaned forward to listen as the waitress brought in their drinks. He listened to Ianto tell his story in that soft Welsh lilt, with his chin on the palm of his hand. 

He was listening to Ianto so intently that he didn’t notice the persistent buzz of his phone in his bag. 

*** 

Ni~ya always considered himself a cool customer. Not the jealous kind at all, given the nature of his job. When Nightmare had first started out, he thought nothing of taking multiple girls home a night. 

Sometimes it became more, sometimes he was the one who left and sometimes they did. C’est la vie. 

So why did he feel the urge to hurl his phone at the wall like a petulant child?

Slumping down on his sofa, Ni~ya rubbed his face as he glanced at the clock and saw that it was three am. The rational part of him knew he should have gone to bed, but Sakito had said that he would drop by and Ni~ya stubbornly wanted to hold him to that. 

The more spiteful side of Ni~ya wanted something that maybe he could lord over the guitarist. But that was outweighed by the part of him that was genuinely concerned whether Sakito was okay. It didn’t help that his messages had gone unanswered since midnight.

He trusted Sakito, he did. But he also couldn’t help his mind from running images of Sakito and his dark haired ex possibly together. Did he make Sakito laugh? Did he get that rare sincere smile from Sakito that only came out when Ni~ya did everything exactly right? 

For some reason that thought hurt more than the idea that the two of them had slept together. 

Ni~ya was so keyed up that the minute he heard the door open, he had gotten to his feet even before Sakito had stepped into the hallway. 

“I’m home,” Sakito said out of habit.

“Welcome back,” Ni~ya replied, trying and failing to not make the standard greeting sound like an accusation. 

It made Sakito freeze in place, his bag dangling from his hand. If Ni~ya’s tone wasn’t enough of an indication that something was wrong, the tightness in his jaw was a dead giveaway. 

“What are you still doing up Ni?” Sakito asked cautiously, not knowing where the landmines were in this conversation they were about to have. Ni~ya shrugged but his eyes were like stone. 

“Well, I told you to drop by, it would have been impolite not to be awake,” Ni~ya said shortly. “Why didn’t you answer my messages?” 

“I was in an izakaya, it was noisy. Also I was with Ianto, it would have been impolite,” Sakito said, stopping at just the edge of Ni~ya’s open plan living room. 

“What’s going on Ni~ya? You go and meet people all the time and I don’t get all prissy,” Sakito said churlishly. He was tired, he was drained and he didn’t appreciate being interrogated at three in the morning. 

Ni~ya clenched his jaw so tightly that it ached. 

“You tell me Sakito. You head off after a live to meet with an ex, who you’ve told me nothing about. I thought as your boyfriend I should at least know more details,” Ni~ya said, crossing his arms. 

“Boyfriend?” Sakito said incredulously. “Do you realise that is the first time you’ve actually called yourself that? And this is what it takes you to say it? Acting like a jealous prick?” 

Ni~ya squared his shoulders at Sakito’s challenge. Usually Sakito was the stubborn one, but two could play at this game. 

“So why didn’t you ask me to come along then?” Ni~ya snapped. He was done acting like it didn’t bother him, because it fucking did. It bothered him so much that he could feel his anger like a red burn at the back of his neck. 

Sakito took a staggered step back at the force of Ni~ya’s words. 

“I don’t need your permission Yuji,” Sakito said coldly, which told Ni~ya that he had managed to piss him off. That was fine by him, Ni~ya was seething too. 

How could Sakito not see that he was just worried about him? That he wanted to matter enough to him that he would check in, that he would take his feelings into consideration.

After all he loved him, wasn’t that normal? 

“What is so special about this guy Sakito? That you would brush me off for him?”

“You are being _such_ a dick Ni~ya,” Sakito said almost venomously. “You brought your girlfriends around all the time, you’ve openly screwed them backstage, and I can’t go meet an old friend?” 

Sakito took a step forward this time, his hands balled into fists. If the bassist had been closer he was sure he would have swung at him. 

“I am _not_ yours to possess!” Sakito said, his voice harsh and jagged. Ni~ya had never seen Sakito this angry before, his hazel eyes almost black as he regarded the bassist with near contempt. 

Ni~ya wanted to fight back, he was going to answer back. But something in Sakito’s fury stopped him. It cut clean through all the arguments he had lined up in his mind and the jealousy he was feeling, letting in an icy blast that cleared the cobwebs. 

It was sorrow, buried deep beneath the spiky anger. 

Ni~ya wondered why was it that for the two of them the truth only seemed to come out during bouts of anger? Were they incapable of just being honest with each other, was their whole relationship going to be like this? 

But maybe, Ni~ya reasoned, it was just how they were wired. How they were designed to fit. 

However, people changed all the time, and Ni~ya knew that in this case he had to be the one to change it. The rules that had worked as friends, didn’t work when they were lovers, and Ni~ya finally saw that. 

Nightmare would fight and argue all the time, they would clash and parry, only solving their issues after a smoke break or a drinking session. 

And Ni~ya didn’t want that with Sakito. Ruka was right that he was making excuses before, that he had been looking for an easy out. 

“No you are not mine to possess Sakito, but I belong to you. Always have, always will,” Ni~ya said softly, his anger petering out with every word. Only to be replaced with something more heated and much sweeter. 

“Ni…” Sakito trailed off as the look in Ni~ya’s eyes made desire spike in his veins. 

Before Sakito could say another word, Ni~ya crossed the floor and kissed him with a fervour he didn’t realise he had in him. He had felt lust before, but never passion like this, consuming him completely. 

“ _Fuck_ Sakito,” Ni~ya breathed into the other man’s mouth as he sucked on his bottom lip until he felt it throb. His tongue was hot in Sakito’s cool mouth, brushing against his teeth as he deepened the kiss. 

“Ni,” Sakito whimpered, and the sound made Ni~ya harden in his jeans. His cock stiffened even more when Sakito started to pant, his hands going beneath Ni~ya’s shirt so he could stroke his flat stomach. 

Ni~ya hissed at the coldness of Sakito’s touch, but he responded by dropping his hands to the guitarist’s waist so he could pull him closer. He smiled into the kiss when he felt Sakito’s hands stutter, because he could clearly feel the hard press of his dick against his thigh. 

He wanted him so badly.

“Want to fuck you Saki. You gonna let me fuck you?” Ni~ya said, his voice so guttural he barely recognised it. 

All Sakito could do was nod, while sucking on Ni~ya’s tongue in a way that told him that what he actually wanted to suck was his cock. Ni~ya gasped when Sakito’s hand found its way to his chest so he could play with his nipple. 

The bassist reluctantly pulled away so he could bring Sakito into his bedroom. Sakito didn’t hesitate before pulling Ni~ya down on the bed with him, so that he was on top of him, so he could keep kissing him, the wool of his top scratchy against the other man’s face. 

Passion and lust hazed Ni~ya’s mind as he ran a hand up Sakito’s side, until he reached the opening of his jeans. He deftly zipped it open before slipping a calloused hand through the fabric so he could massage the front of his briefs. 

Before, Ni~ya had wondered whether it would feel strange to handle a cock that wasn’t his own. But Sakito’s dick felt so warm and solid, pulsing below his palms and his own prick twitched in response. Then his fingers travelled up the shaft so he could trace the tip, moaning deep in the back of his throat at how sticky it was. 

Sakito couldn’t contain a sound of pleasure as he moved his hips against Ni~ya’s hand, rubbing himself off. 

But he wanted to touch and see too. Sakito pushed Ni~ya back so he could grab the edges of his long-sleeved raglan, pulling it over his head so that his chest was bare. The bassist took the hint and pushed at Sakito’s top, cursing at how ridiculously complicated it was to take off. 

When he finally did, both of them were breathless and Sakito’s cheeks were pink. Both men stared at each other before letting out a conspiratorial laugh. Ni~ya leaned forward so he could brush his fingers over Sakito’s face, his breathing growing heavier when Sakito caught his pre-cum sticky fingers in the corner of his mouth. 

“You okay?” Ni~ya asked, his hips moving even as he spoke, grinding against Sakito’s thigh. He could feel the tip of his cock grow damp and the warmth spread in his briefs. 

“Yeah, but I want to blow you Ni,” Sakito whispered huskily, cupping Ni~ya’s substantial cock through his jeans. His eyes widened in surprise though when Ni~ya shook his head, making all his earlier insecurities come flooding back. 

But Ni~ya saw the naked uncertainty in Sakito’s eyes and calmed him with a kiss that made his toes curl into the sheets. 

“If you do, I am going to lose it, and I want to blow my load inside you,” Ni~ya said with a deep, filthy chuckle. As if to emphasise his point, he dipped his hand lower so he could push a dry fingertip inside Sakito’s back entrance, making him grasp the duvet. 

Sakito swallowed hard and gave a dazed nod. It was all the permission Ni~ya needed to reach for his side table so he could pull out a bottle of lube and a strip of condoms. Sakito watched with hooded eyes as Ni~ya poured a generous amount of slick into his palm, kicking off his jeans so that he was completely naked. 

He kept watching as Ni~ya tore a condom off the end of the strip and held it in his teeth. His heart started to race as the bassist traced an invisible line, starting from the middle of the guitarist’s stomach, past his fine patch of pubic hair so he could cup his balls. 

Sakito hissed as Ni~ya gently squeezed. The bassist licked his bottom lip as he took the sight before him, his lover naked and spread out, his skin gleaming from a faint sheen of sweat, his dick hard and pressed against his stomach. 

Ni~ya felt like he could come there and then, his cock so hard it was painful inside the confines of his briefs. He needed to catch his breath for a moment so he could pull it out. Sakito’s mouth ached as he saw Ni~ya’s cock drip onto his mattress. 

“Open me up Ni~ya, now, please,” Sakito said breathily, opening his legs as far apart as he could. His back arched when he felt Ni~ya circle his asshole, slowly fingering him open until he felt those fingers reach as deep in as he could. 

“Want me here Sakito?” Ni~ya said smokily, scissoring his fingers, pouring more lube as he stretched, until he felt him soften and relax. 

“Yes Ni,” Sakito groaned. His eyes narrowed when Ni~ya just kept taking his time, so he decided to hurry him up by reaching for his lover’s penis. Sakito smiled as Ni~ya visibly trembled as he jerked him off. 

“Bitch,” Ni~ya cursed, but Sakito took it as a compliment. He took the condom packet from Ni~ya and tore the foil open, rolling the rubber down the bassist’s slippery length. He lifted his legs up so they were resting on Ni~ya’s shoulders, biting his lip in anticipation as he felt the tip of Ni~ya’s prick brush his entrance. 

Ni~ya shifted and Sakito felt the stretch as his cock pushed partway inside. Sakito threw his head back when Ni~ya penetrated him fully, his body opening and clenching as he felt Ni~ya bottom out. 

“ _Fuck_ , you are tight,” Ni~ya said through gritted teeth, his hips only barely twitching as Sakito clung to him so he could take him in deeper. Ni~ya retaliated by leaning forward so he could softly bite Sakito’s earlobe, which made him gasp. 

“Haven’t had a dick there in a while huh baby? Waiting for me?” Ni~ya whispered, his barriers rendered thin by lust. Sakito felt his blood rise to a fever pitch at Ni~ya’s dirty talk, coupled with his increasingly hard thrusts. 

“Yes Ni, waiting for you to fuck me. I know you would fuck me so well,” Sakito panted, arching his back so Ni~ya could thrust even deeper, his stomach slapping against the back of his thighs as he was bent almost double. 

“Yeah, nobody will fuck you like I can Sakito. Fuck you so deep...so...fuck, _fuck_ ,” Ni~ya swore as he picked up the pace, digging his knees into the mattress until he was practically pounding Sakito into the bedding. 

It was the culmination of two months of no sex, of holding himself back, but Ni~ya swore he never had a fuck like this before, fucked someone this hard before so that his vision blurred at the edges. 

Ni~ya buried himself as deep as he could inside his lover as he reached for his cock, jacking him off with quick, efficient motions with his hand that was still wet from the lube. It was enough to trigger Sakito’s climax, who let out a throaty moan as his cum slicked Ni~ya’s stroke. 

It was enough to snap the last of Ni~ya’s control, his orgasm almost taking him by surprise as he thrust in as deep as he could go and filled the condom with his spunk. 

Ni~ya swore all he could hear for the next few minutes was a buzz in his ears as he took deep gulps of air. As that faded, Ni ~ya wondered why his breathing sounded so loud until he realised that Sakito was finding it hard to breathe too. 

For some reason, the bassist found that utterly charming, to see Sakito so disheveled, his normally perfectly styled hair mussed and falling into his eyes. His eyeliner was smudged and his lips were faintly bruised. 

He had never looked more beautiful. 

Ni~ya was going to tell him that when Sakito stopped him by brushing his hair back, still violently blue in the dark of the room. The way he was looking at him, made all the sparks go off beneath his skin. 

“You are so handsome Ni,” Sakito murmured with naked affection. Like he was the lucky one to have Ni~ya fall in love with him. The bassist responded by kissing each of his fingertips, ending with a soft brush to his lips. 

After cleaning up, Ni~ya pulled Sakito close so that his head could rest on his chest. It was then Ni~ya noticed that his arm was just long enough to cradle the turn of Sakito’s elbow, his head fitting into the dip of his shoulder. 

Even for Ni~ya, the man who knew where everything should go, nothing felt more perfect than this. 

He didn’t want to ruin the moment by saying anything, although there were a lot of questions still unanswered. But he gave Sakito the space he knew he needed, stroking his hair as he let the night swaddle them in darkness. 

“The reason I didn’t ask, the reason I didn’t tell you about him was because he was the only person I had ever talked to about you,” Sakito said softly. 

Ni~ya closed his eyes and lightly squeezed Sakito’s tricep as if to encourage him to go on. 

“When I met him at his bar in Roppongi, he looked so lost and something in the way his gaze never seemed able to settle on anything, resonated with me. Because I guess, I was feeling the same way.” 

Sakito lifted his head off Ni~ya’s chest so he could look him properly in the eye. The bassist’s heart constricted when he saw that Sakito chew on his bottom lip, his only obvious tell. 

“I had nobody else in my universe at that time that I could honestly talk about how I felt about you Yuji. He was in a similar situation and it was nice to find a kindred spirit.” 

The guitarist murmured the rest of his confession into Ni~ya’s skin, as if it made saying the words easier. 

“I wanted to tell someone who had no stake in my life.”

Ni~ya’s throat tightened but his fingers never faltered. 

“I’m sorry Saki.”

“Don’t be Ni~ya,” Sakito said cupping his face. “There is nothing to be sorry about.”

Ni~ya opened his mouth to say something only to close it when he realised that once again, Sakito was right. They had got there in the end, and that was all that mattered at this point. 

“Would you like to meet them? Jack and Ianto I mean,” Sakito asked. The way he said it told Ni~ya that he wasn’t trying to smooth over any feelings of jealousy. Rather it sounded like Sakito genuinely wanted him to meet someone that had helped him get to where they were now. 

“Would love to,” Ni~ya answered with a kiss to Sakito’s hair, filling his nose with the smell of cypress and jasmine. It was the last thing he remembered before he fell asleep. 

***

“Ready to go Ianto?” 

“Yeah,” Ianto replied, but Jack noticed how he kept checking his watch every few seconds. They weren’t late for their flight, but their bags had already been loaded into the waiting Uber in front of them.

“He will be here, don't worry,” Jack said, rubbing Ianto’s arm reassuringly. Ianto shot him a half-smile at the gesture, but it totally didn’t erase the worry lines around his mouth. 

“Ianto!” 

Jack and Ianto turned just in time to see Sakito skid to a stop in front of them with Ni~ya following close behind. 

“Sorry we were late, practice ran long,” Sakito said, throwing his arms around Ianto in a hug. Ianto chuckled as he returned it, but he managed to catch Ni~ya’s smirk over Sakito’s shoulder that told him that the bassist was not as apologetic. 

Clearly it wasn’t just practice that had held them up. 

But Ianto found that he really didn’t mind. After a couple dinner and drink sessions, the Welshman found that he actually really liked Ni~ya, appreciated his easy-going nature and wickedly dry sense of humour. 

And it was obvious to both him and Jack that he adored Sakito. 

“I told you that you didn’t have to see us off Sakito,” Ianto said, a little embarrassed that he had made the guitarist come all this way for a ten minute meet. 

“Are you kidding?” Sakito shot back, indignant. “What kind of host would I be if I let you go back with no souvenirs?” 

He turned to Ni~ya with an expectant look on his face, which made the bassist scowl as he hoisted two large bags he had been hauling to dump them near the two men’s luggage. As much as he loved the guitarist, he wasn’t sure all the good sex in the world was worth four hours of snack shopping. 

Jack wasn’t complaining though as he eagerly rummaged through it, pulling out various boxes with the appropriate amount of “oohs” and “aahs”. 

Sakito cocked his head as he took in the scene in front of him, Jack going through boxes with an almost childlike glee as Ni~ya glowered off to the side with a cigarette in hand. He turned to Ianto who was also watching, and felt a moment of understanding pass between them. 

Even with all their history, it was clear to both of them that whatever mutual grief that had initially tied them together had been severed clean. Leaving only friendship. 

“We better go, don’t want to miss our flight,” Ianto said, giving Sakito one last hug and a soft kiss on the cheek. “Don’t be a stranger okay?”

Sakito nodded as sadness pricked his skin. 

“Thank you Ianto, for everything,” he said quietly into his ear, hastily rubbing his nose as he took a step back. 

“Drop me a message when you get back to the UK. And if you miss anything from Tokyo, just tell me okay and I will get it to you,” Sakito said earnestly. 

“I will probably hold you to that more than Ianto will,” Jack chimed in, giving Sakito a bear hug that left him just shy of breathless. 

“It was nice to meet you Ni~ya,” Ianto said, shaking the bassist’s hand firmly.

“Likewise,” Ni~ya drawled, but he felt a sputter of worry travel through him when he saw Jack and Ianto exchange glances just before he came to shake his hand. 

“It was great meeting you,” Jack said warmly, his grip strong to the point that Ni~ya felt the compression in the bones of his hand. But before he could respond, Jack pulled him closer to tell him something that only the bassist could hear. 

“Ianto says if you hurt Sakito, he will hurt you.” 

Ni~ya jerked back but Jack never let go of his hand, a beatific smile on his face, and an undoubtedly dangerous glint in his eye. 

Needless to say, Ni~ya was glad when the two of them finally got into their Uber and he could wave goodbye. Letting out a sigh of relief, Ni~ya turned to ask Sakito something, only to find him staring at the disappearing car with what looked like sorrow in his eyes. 

“Hey…” 

Before he could blink, Ni~ya had dropped a quick kiss on his lips, as if to bring him back to the present. It was enough to break whatever emotion that Sakito had been holding on to, so that he could turn his attention back to his boyfriend. 

“You okay?” Ni~ya asked, giving Sakito’s hand a quick squeeze. But before he could let go, Sakito playfully hooked their pinky fingers together, a broad smile across his face. 

“Better than okay,” Sakito replied, the earlier sorrow gone and replaced with something Ni~ya swore almost looked like love. 

“Let’s go home.” 

They walked that way all the way back to their apartments, their hands almost, but not quite, touching.


	3. ~Epilogue~

***

_Close your eyes softly in the snowflakes_  
_That warm up little by little_

_When I remember the blue summer sky,_  
_You were immediately by my side_

_It seems everything overflows in nostalgia_

***

“Wait Ni~ya, wait! I need to go to JD in Laforet,” Sakit said, tugging his boyfriend’s hand to slow him down. 

It was Saturday, and for the first time in a long time, there was nothing for the both of them to do. No rehearsals, no lives, no long hours locked up in a studio. It was just the two of them together for the whole day, where the most pressing question was where they were going to get lunch. 

The thought made Sakito happier than he ever thought it could.

He would have enjoyed it more though if not for Ni~ya’s blistering walking pace, which he had complained about more than once. Only to have Ni~ya whine that “it’s fucking freezing” and pull his beanie down so low that only the blue-tips of his hair peeked out. 

Sakito did eventually relent, admitting that it was unusually cold for mid-March, his face hidden behind a chunky jewel-toned cable knit scarf. But the almost garish glare of the Justin Davis ring display as they walked past Laforet Harajuku reminded Sakito that he had an errand to run. 

“What for?” 

“Ianto asked me to order a ring for him, and apparently it is ready,” Sakito said, scrunching his nose as he scrolled through his phone to find the notification. 

Ni~ya cocked his head to the side in quizzical surprise. 

“Ianto and Jack are getting married?” He said, more than a little taken aback. “Has hell frozen over?” 

Sakito laughed and shook his head. 

“No, Ianto is helping a friend of his in New York. That reminds me, must remember to ask the office to send it,” Sakito muttered as he entered a reminder into his phone. 

The staff at Justin Davis bowed politely at the two of them as they entered, before immediately showing them to the back room, which the two Nightmare members appreciated. It was Harajuku after all. 

Donning pristine white gloves, a member of staff took a small box out of the large safe in the back, opening it with the faintest creak to reveal the engagement ring inside. He reverently laid it out on a black velvet display panel so that the two men could have a better look, before bowing politely and exiting to give them some privacy. 

As Sakito looked down at the ring, he felt something unfamiliar unfurl inside him. The ring was simple enough, a platinum band with milgrain edges and a single emerald in the middle. But there was no question what type of ring it was. 

“It’s very plain,” Ni~ya suddenly piped up, giving the ring a critical once over. Sakito laughed and batted the bassist on the shoulder. 

“That is because you are used to wearing rings that could poke someone’s eye out,” Sakito replied playfully. Instead of answering, Ni~ya just stuck his tongue out at his boyfriend, which made him roll his eyes. 

“Real mature Ni.” 

“It is also rather masculine,” the bassist critiqued. 

But instead of answering, Sakito just smiled as if he knew something that his lover didn’t. 

“Well it should be, it’s for a man,” the guitarist said a touch loftily as he pulled up the photo that Ianto had sent him. 

Ni~ya didn’t even try to hide his surprise. 

“Well fuck me sideways.” Sakito’s smile broadened fondly at his boyfriend’s pithy response as he handed his phone over for the bassist to have a better look. 

“He said one of them is a policeman and the other is a lawyer.” 

Ni~ya looked closely at the couple, one of them tall with silver brown hair and the friendliest blue eyes he had ever seen, laughing along with Latino man whose broad shoulders perfectly filled out his impeccably tailored suit jacket and whose eyes were somewhere between brown and green. 

Polar opposite in looks, but it didn’t take Ni~ya more than a cursory glance to know that they belonged together. There was a softness in those blue eyes that the bassist knew was reserved for no one else, while the gentle curve in the older man’s smile told Ni~ya that his words always came out jagged and arrogant for everyone except his lover. 

“Oh yeah, I forget that same-sex marriage is legal in the US,” Ni~ya said contemplatively. 

Although there was no visible undercurrent to what Ni~ya was saying, it still plucked at something in Sakito’s chest. 

To be honest, marriage was something that never really occurred to Sakito, even now while in a relationship with Ni~ya. It wasn’t because he was against marriage or anything like that, but it had never been the be all and end all for him in a relationship. 

That was simply a function of the life they had chosen to live, which all but assured that none of their relationships would ever be conventional. 

But…

Sakito bit back a sigh he took the ring in his hand on the pretence of looking for any flaws. 

Even so, a part of him did go a tad bit wistful as he gazed down at the ring. 

The other part wondered whether Ni~ya would eventually come to resent Sakito for taking away that choice from him. 

The guitarist jumped when Ni~ya suddenly squeezed his hand, as if he knew Sakito’s thoughts were about to run away with him. Turning his head to the side, Sakito’s breathing hitched when he saw a soft expression on Ni~ya’s face that spoke of something he wasn’t sure he could name. 

Before he could say anything though, the bassist took an audibly deep breath before reaching for the wedding catalogue on the table. 

“If I ever were to buy you a ring Saki, it would probably be more like this,” Ni~ya said casually, almost too casually, as he pointed to a crown ring, which Justin Davis was best known for.

The ring he had pointed out was huge, with elaborate filigree that would almost reach the knuckle, studded with diamonds and topped off with a stunning pink diamond mounted at the crest. 

It was elegant and yet austentatious at the same time. 

It was so him. 

“Couldn’t strum with that though Ni~ya,” Sakito replied, but the look in his eyes told the bassist that he understood. 

Before his boyfriend could answer, they were interrupted by a discreet cough. 

“Is everything satisfactory?” The staff asked, his eyes respectfully downcast. 

That broke the moment, and Sakito nodded as he briskly handed over his credit card, after checking that they had given him a discount. Their management had bought and worn so many pieces from JD over the years that it was the least they could do. 

As the staff gave him a card to write on, Sakito turned to watch his boyfriend idly flicking through his phone and nonchalantly looking over the rings, and felt a swell of affection well up inside of him. 

In a sudden burst of inspiration, the guitarist started scribbling, putting down his emotions for two strangers he had never met, but whose story he was now a part of. 

“I don’t know you and I’ve never met you, but from the bottom of my heart I hope the person you give this ring to stays with you always, laughs with you always and dreams with you always. Congratulations.”

After finishing the card, Sakito made a mental note to include a bottle of whisky with the ring, his Japanese sensibilities unable to let him send something so straightforward. 

And besides, Ni~ya seemed to have too many bottles of Yamazaki for some reason. 

The minute he saw that Sakito was busy with the card, Ni~ya quietly slipped a note to the staff indicating which ring he had been looking at earlier, the size and where to send the bill. 

As they walked out, Sakito suddenly jostled Ni~ya by the shoulder. 

“Ni~ya, it’s snowing!” Sakito said in breathless surprise. The bassist looked up shocked, but true enough, fat flakes were falling down in a steady stream from the grey sky, frosting the pavement white. 

“This late?” He mused. But Sakito barely heard him as he pulled him in the direction of the park. 

“It should look beautiful on the sakura don’t you think? We should take pictures,” Sakito said, unable to keep the slight note of excitement out of his voice. 

Now it was Ni~ya’s turn to roll his eyes at how giddy Sakito could get sometimes, but he still let himself get pulled along. 

Looking down, he couldn’t help but notice how Sakito’s hand always did seem to fit into his, and more importantly, how perfect a crown ring would look on his fourth finger. 

The bassist smiled to himself at the thought. 

It may never happen. It may. 

Maybe now. Maybe never. 

Maybe sometimes, Ni~ya just wanted to buy Sakito a ring because he thought his hands were beautiful, and needed something just as beautiful to match. 

***

**~The End~**

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to whoever is reading up until this point, you are awesome. This fic was so long in the making that I am glad that I finally managed to finish it. I love this couple, always have, and I am glad that I got to tell a version of their story :)
> 
> Songs used: 
> 
> I. Stargazer ~ Jakigan Meister (from the single Stargazer)  
> II. Alumina ~ Nightmare (from the album The World Ruler)  
> III. 邂逅カタルシス ~ Nightmare (from the single Lost in Blue)


End file.
